Alan Grayson's Grandstanding Inspires Liberals to Rattle the Right

Congressman Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida, has been on a cage-rattling streak. Earlier in the week he lambasted
Republicans on the House floor, saying their health care plan reduces to a simple formula: "don't get sick" and, if you get sick, "die quickly." Later, he denied GOP demands for an apology, saying, "I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America." On CNN, Grayson called Republicans blocking reform, "knuckle-dragging neanderthals."

Grayson's remarks have since been played and replayed on cable news
and linked heavily on blogs. Though provocative, his attacks were
hardly unusual: GOP lawmakers have claimed that
under Democratic health care reform "One in five people have to die," while earning comparatively scant attention. Yet Republicans have repeatedly slammed
Grayson, calling for him to be publicly rebuked. Why has Grayson so
quickly become such a lightning rod for conservative scorn? Liberal writers offer theories and draw a few lessons:

Double Standard for Dems and RepsMatt Yglesias called
the "hubbub" over Grayon "absurd." "I think the real issue—and the real
import—of Grayson’s statement is
that it involved breaking one of the unspoken rules of modern American
politics. The rule is that conservatives talk about their causes in
stark, moralistic terms and progressives don’t. Instead, progressives
talk about our causes in bloodless technocratic terms," he wrote. "He
characterized his opponents' views polemically, but wasn't offering
any kind of wild factual distortions. But moralism from the left is
very unfamiliar to American political debates."

Democrat Grayson Adopted Republic StrategyDigby referenced
a 2007 essay she'd written encouraging Democrats to coopt "phony
Republican outrage fests," as she described them. "At the time I wrote
it, I had little hope that we would ever be able to
end this silly practice because the Democrats both capitulated to the
GOP's smug sanctimonious caterwauling and refused to turn the practice
back on them," she wrote. "But I think Grayson may have shown the way.
It takes guts
and it takes being willing to have Gloria 'Cokie' Borger tut-tut you
like you are an errant child, but if you are willing to go right at
them and then refuse to back down, the Republican propensity to call
for the smelling salts whenever the Democrats do the same things the
Republicans do might just die out"

Dems Should Be More Like GraysonAdamSerwerencouraged Democrats to follow Grayson's example in getting their message out. "There's really a lesson here for Democrats in the 24-hour media blitz Grayson has received," he wrote. "Going a little overboard goes a long way in getting the press to pay attention to what you're saying. From the Democrats point of view, I fail to see the downside." Serwer added, "For the first time since the health-care debate started, a Democrat has
accused Republicans of being the kind of inhuman monsters Republicans
regularly accuse Democrats of being, and he has refused to apologize
for it."

'Tounge-in-Cheek' Remarks Taken Too SeriouslyThe New Republic's Marin Cogan wrote that Grayson seems himself as a Jon Stewart of sorts. "Grayson’s dark, sarcastic sense of
humor is well-established with anyone who has followed his career.
There’s his famous remark that Rush Limbaugh 'was more lucid when he
was on painkillers.' Last month he told
the crowd at Netroots Nation that his opponent in 2008 'did all his
hiring at Hooters.' And at a political fundraiser with the vice
president recently, he made cracks
about how Dick Cheney 'liked to shoot old men in the face,' prompting
Biden to call him a 'lousy comedian.' When Joe Biden thinks you’ve gone
too far, you know there’s a problem."